Is it Time to Take Your (Android) Tablets?

However much I dislike Apple's obsession with control - the very antithesis of openness - I have to admit that its iPad is an important artefact. I think the tablet is on its way to becoming an important adjunct to other kinds of computing - ideal for sofa-top consumption, say. It will also be perfect for many business and industrial uses (I'm sure it won't be long until we see rugged versions of the form factor.)

On Open Enterprise blog.

Wouldn't It Be Wonderful to Have....ODS?

The Guardian continues to do its bit for open data:

The Guardian has pulled together a collection of datasets drawn from the US

Rather cleverly, it is using Spreadly, aka Google Spreadsheets to offer various formats:

Simon Rogers gathered this information and shared the raw data via Google Spreadsheets for anyone to use. This means that people can grab the data in whatever format is most desirable including text, .csv, .xls, and .pdf.

That's great, but why is .odf - also available from Spreadly - omitted? Anything personal? Lack of space? Not enough electrons...?

OOo - Not Presently Supported

As expected, Google has added a presentation capability to its online apps:

Starting today, users can:

* Create and keep presentations in one place on the web that's accessible anytime, from any Internet connected computer.
* Manage, update and share presentations with colleagues by sending them a simple email invitation.
* Edit together online and in real-time, or contribute at different times to the same presentation on the web.
* Present and control slide shows for all viewers over the web, with no special setup required. Chat with viewers in real-time via integrated chat.
* Import existing presentations to get started quickly.
* Quickly publish presentations to the general public or individuals of their choice.

The bad - terrible - news is that Google's Presently (as I shall insist on calling it alongside Writely and Spreadly) does *not* support OpenOffice.org's Impress format. This is incredibly stupid, since it perpetuates the idea that Powerpoint is synonymous with presentations, and that there is no other option. Come on, Google, pull that corporate finger out, puh-lease.

Google's Writely and Spreadly Get it Together

I'm a big fan of Google's Writely online word processor - I now do most of my writing with it. I can't say the same about Spreadly, I mean the online spreadsheet, because it lacks basic features like charts (as far as I can tell). But Google are steadily making improvements - for example, by integrating the Writely and Spreadly file spaces.